Crying over spilt lait…

So.

Where are we now then?

In a bit of a state, I’d say.

Not the great big federalist state we were in before admittedly, but a state nonetheless.

And can you believe that there are people wondering how the hell it happened?

Calling for a second referendum because, ‘it was a bit close, wasn’t it? After all there was only just over one million votes in it.‘

Well I guess you could say that, but the last time I looked one million was perceived to be quite a large number. If you gave me that amount in one pence pieces I would be a bit chuffed to be honest.

But, that aside and ignoring the nasty name calling that’s going on I do feel that we have to ask ourselves the question, ‘what did we expect?‘

No, seriously, I mean it. Because in elections held previously we managed to elect to the European Parliament as our major party of choice a bunch of MEP’s whose sole raison d’etre was to get us out of the place as soon as possible.

There has been an episode of ‘Yes, Minister?‘ doing the rounds on Facebook where Sir Humphrey explains to the hapless Jim Hacker why we should be in Europe so that we can screw it up better from the inside. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up!

I have stated in a previous blog that we wouldn’t scrape UKIP off our shoes with a pointy stick over here, but found it perfectly acceptable for Farage’s mates to represent our interests in Brussels and the farce which was Strasbourg. What did we think they were doing? Did we somehow assume that they were working diligently with our European partners trying to make France and Germany – sorry I mean Europe – a better place?

Surely we weren’t that naive!

But then again, apparently we were. Perhaps those who are a bit narked and calling for a re-run now were a bit slow getting off their arses in 2014 to vote in our preferred Euro M.P.’s then. Just saying!

Let’s face it, whatever we’re whinging and blaming each other about now, we have never been too happy with Johnny Foreigner have we? Even De Gaulle didn’t want us to join as he reckoned we would only screw it up.

And as it turns out he may have been right. From Heath, through to Thatcher and not forgetting Dave we always tried to get our own way didn’t we? Invariably we got screwed and what we were told by our glorious leaders that what was a supposedly good deal turned out to be not exactly biased in our favour.

We were always seeking a veto, weren’t we?

Remember Maastricht? (Incidentally, the French ratified that with a majority of only 51% / 49%)

Remember the ERM?

Remember the French being so concerned about our little spat in the South Atlantic that they supplied Exocet missiles to the Argentinians? Good neighbours, huh! By the way, before we get too animated about our soon to be independent status, just remember that our hopefully new ‘bestest buddies‘ across the pond didn’t want to help us out with that one either!

And our leaders wanted us to believe them on Turkey?

Still it could have been worse – we could have ended up with the euro!

So what next?

Well I don’t pretend to have the answers but I would suggest that now we have voted ‘Nein,‘ we should skidaddle a.s.a.p.

By the way Cameron has bottled that one hasn’t he? Not going to tell our neighbours that we intend to leave as Article 50 demands.

No, he’ll pass that poison chalice to poor old Boris. Oh, don’t panic – it’ll be a bit like Sir Alex passing the mantle to David Moyes at Man U, you just know at the outset his time in the seat of power is already numbered. The poor sod won’t last two minutes. By the way ‘Call Me Dave,‘ I hate to break the bad news but I think our old Euro mates know the score already! They may have caught wind of the fact that we’re trying to sneak out of the back door.

And don’t expect Jessa’s mob to sort it out either. The poor chap does seem to get confused by long words anyway and now has the look of a very startled rabbit in the glare of some enormous headlights as his cabinet disintegrates before his eyes quicker than a self assembly sink unit from B & Q.

UKIP won’t help us. There is now nothing for it to be independent of (except the rest of Great Britain) and the noise you can hear is only the death rattle in Nigel’s throat. The body may twitch for a couple of years but it is now a busted flush.

Get out quick is my advice. And why do I say that? Well I foresee all manner of tabs run up by the profligate state will become due for payment if we do take the generally accepted two years to pack our bags. Yes, once the neighbours we have been propping up the bar with realise that we are about to stagger off home, taking our wallet with us and that they shall have to pay their own round for once, I predict that all hell will break loose. How will Europe fare once the cash cow it has been milking for so long wanders off into its own field?

And as for the Scots!

Well actually I mean the Scots and the Northern Irish, but listening to various commentaries on this situation it has struck me that the Irish situation has somehow been ignored and that the Scots have all our attention. But I digress.

Sturgeon has been rushing about trying to get all her little caviar eggs in one basket.

She wants out.

Paint her face blue and cry, ‘Freedom!’

Can’t knock her for that, she always has and always will – the thing with democracy is that you have to respect the other persons stance.

But I just hope that you north of the border have a lot of loose change rattling around in your sporrans.

The Greeks will no doubt need another bail out of their leaky ship. The Italian and the Irish economy are shaky to say the least. That’s going to add up to a lot of oil. Let’s hope the pump price goes up so you can pay for it.

Although I wouldn’t stress too much about that, Jimmy. The exclusive club you so dearly want to join may yet implode spectacularly.

It is all sadly a bit of a mess.

Better get our act together and sort it out then. We had that chance after the Second World War, but we dithered and fannyed about so much – even at one stage suggesting some sort of a European Alliance – that we left it to the French and Germans to come up with a plan.

That didn’t work out so well, we now find out.

On the other hand we may follow the example of our soon to be ex P.M. and bottle it too, but I doubt the rest of the club would let us.

I think they’re a little bit miffed, don’t you!?

ROPOPOV…

Just to prove that I can do new stuff here on WordPress, here’s a little something that I wrote yesterday. This is day 8 of my 10 day course by the way, so you won’t have to suffer this much longer!

There are times when I’m writing that I do like to invent the odd word. ‘Authorish,‘ was a recent example. I forget the context but it doesn’t really matter now. I know it’s not a proper word because my word processor underlines it in red and the predictive text tries to change it to authorised.
It’s not the first example of my butchering of the English language and it certainly won’t be the last. But friends, I feel that I may have taken this habit (some may say bad habit) to its extreme.
Yes, I fear that I may have taken that process a tad too far. Did you ever read that short story by Stephen King (or it may have been his alter-ego, Richard Bachman) about the guy always striving to take shorter and shorter cuts home until he’s virtually getting back before he’s set out. In the end he wound up with all sorts of demons from hell stuck to his front bumper (sorry, fender! I forgot how adept the Yanks are at skewing our language too).
‘What on earth’s he waffling on about now?‘ I hear you cry.
Bear with me.
Incidentally, isn’t ‘waffling‘ a wonderful word. I wonder who came up with that one? Our old mate Shakey Bill perhaps?
But I digress.
You see I was out walking the dogs along the canal towpath. The sun’s shining, the birds are singing, ducks quacking – you get the picture. In the distance I notice a chap jogging toward us. He’s a long way off. This is a good thing. It gives me a chance to organise the troops.
‘Sit, Misty.‘
But she had spotted him ages ago and is sat already. Border collies are good like that!

Millie, being a border terrier/ Jack Russell cross is a different matter. Call it little dog syndrome if you like.
I call it being a pain in the arse!
I command her to stay. She ignores me. I tell her to sit. Same result. Her tail starts to wag. Something is coming her way and she’s going to bite it on the ankle.
I grab her.
I wrestle her to the floor.
I attach her to a very tight, short lead.

Chummy rushes past in a cloud of dust.
‘Thanks!‘ he calls over his shoulder.
And how do I repay this verbal generosity?
‘Ropopov.‘
What!!?
Where the hell did that come from?
Was I conceivably Russian in a former life?
It wasn’t as though I had some well thought out response rattling around my brain and simply tripped over the vowels and consonants.
No. There was nothing in my head at all.
Who said ‘no change there then!‘ There’s no need!
Like I said, nothing sprang to mind at all.
Except, ‘ropopov.‘
Fortunately not only was I incoherent, I was also extremely quiet, so I don’t think he heard me.
But seriously?
‘Ropopov!‘
Bloody hell!
So there you have it. I have obviously tampered with my native tongue far too much and now the devil’s hordes have attached themselves to my bottom lip.
I’m signing out now, so ‘ropopov,‘ to you all.
And you can make of that what you like.
Well, I’ve got to get some use from it now that I’ve invented it.
And besides, I think it has quite a ring to it, don’t you?

Asylum Seekers…

Well it’s getting close to the vote.
In or out of the asylum?

Now I know that in my recent blog, EU – the Hokey Cokey (it’s on this site somewhere) I did make the assertion that anyone who told you whether we were better off either in or out of the aforementioned institution was an idiot, because no one knows for sure. And I still hold to that view, none of us has a crystal ball after all, otherwise the bankers would be loading what’s left of our pension pots into the financial markets to make a quick buck whilst they thought we weren’t looking.

But, and I stress but, it is worth a snigger at some of the absurdity’s which have arisen while the lunatics have been running the show.

Mostly it can be summed up in one word.

Strasbourg.

O.k., not a word I grant you.

A name.

A name which ought to be writ large and illuminated in garish neon lights to highlight the shame that it heaps upon us all.

Strasbourg.

It was worth repeating.

Yes, the ignoble club formerly known as the EEC feels the need to up sticks from its spiritual home in Brussels to go and vote once a month in a different country.

Why?

Because France says so.

Those who say that we should stay because ‘we can change things from the inside,‘ should mark this well!

Now as everyone else knows, France is the biggest looney of the lot. If it can’t get it’s own way the default setting is to have a bit of a tantrum.

A hissy fit.

At least with Germany you know you’re in the same arena as the playground bully.

But France is different. It’s a bit sneaky. ‘Those little Englanders,‘ it whispers in the ear of anyone whose skirts it wants to hide behind – usually the Germans – ‘always causing trouble! If they want to leave why don’t they just bugger off and leave us to cuddle each other?‘ Although when Germany gets a bit too belligerent they hide behind our skirts and let us do the fighting – funny that!

And yet, here they are ripping us off with bloody Strasbourg. Do they think we haven’t noticed? According to which side you believe the figure is somewhere around £100 million per year. Perhaps a bit more, perhaps a bit less. Hey, it’s only loose change, eh? Or between 5-6% of the entire administrative budget to put it another way. And I thought that I was being extravagant getting in the car to go to the corner shop if it was raining!

Yes, as soon as the circus rumbles out of sight of the Belgian suburbs those crafty hoteliers from Europe’s second capital reverse their tariff boards hung by a piece of string next to the ‘VACANCY’ sign. Prices double immediately as do those in the surrounding shops, restaurants and brothels (well we all know politicians are partial to a good spanking by a dominatrix – not so much smugly superior as ugly posterior!)
‘Very nice for the economy, merci very much,‘ they shout from the Paris treasury as our taxpayer funded dosh piles up in the funny Monopoly money they invented a few years back.

By the way, we did well stopping out of that one. The Euro! Remember decimalisation and how we got ripped off in the early seventies? Prices more than doubled overnight while we were still counting on our fingers trying to work out how many new pence were in a shilling. Imagine that on a continental scale! Just ask the Greeks. Anyway I digress.

Europe prides itself on its empathy with the environment and is rightly concerned about the size of its carbon jackboot – sorry, footprint. I assume that means that the buildings in Brussels have not yet been fitted with the latest energy saving light bulbs, but those in Strasbourg have, which is why it makes so much more sense to pump all that Co2 into the atmosphere as they transfer operations. Although if that is the case it makes you wonder why they bother to go back again only a few days later.
A case of having ones cake and eating it, perhaps? Marie Antoinette would have been so proud!

All a bit tongue in cheek that.

Hey!

Only kidding, rest of Europe.

You know we can’t be serious when the majority party we’ve elected to your parliament is one we wouldn’t scrape off our shoe with a pointy stick over here.

Yes, you shafted us with straight cucumbers if you’ll pardon the expression, we gave you UKIP!

Seems like a fair trade agreement to me, how about you?

DOGNAPPED! Day – Yay!

Here we are on day 7 of this trawl around previous blogs. In case you’d forgotten these were originally posted on an obscure page well away from view and so I’ve just resurrected a few to coincide with a WordPress online course that I’ve undertaken.

And just occasionally I like to blog about my own stuff. In this case my children’s book, DOGNAPPED! It was released at the end of April and to celebrate that fact here is the blog I wrote at the time.

You might like it – the book as well as the blog. It’s doing very well with six 5* and one 4* reviews on Amazon – non of which are by anyone even remotely related to me, just in case you were wondering. And here’s a link to it, you know, just in case I’ve piqued your interest…

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dognapped-David-J-Robertson/dp/1785891448?

Personally I don’t think that’s too bad, even for a book with Boris Johnson in it! That’s him in the last picture, doling out the medals in his capacity as Mayor. Better not tell him though eh? He might want a copy for free! Here’s DOGNAPPED! Day – Yay! :-

So.

Here we are.

At last.
28th. April 2016.
Mark it well.
Official publication day for DOGNAPPED!

It’s been a long time coming.
If you’ve missed all the hype it’s a kids book.
For kids.
About 7 – 9 years of age.
I recommend that you buy it for younger children and read it to them.
Because you’ll enjoy it too.
I know.
Because I wrote it.
Yes, me.
David J Robertson.
I even have an authors name now.
This is called blowing your own trumpet.
Loudly, I hope.

It’s about my dog.
Misty.
And her friends.
Having an adventure.
On a boat.
There’s no hidden message.
Or agenda.
Or political correctness.
If you do see any of the above you’re looking too hard.
It’s just fun.
For kids.
So rush out and order it.
From Waterstones.
Or W.H.Smith.
Perhaps your local independent bookshop.
Even Amazon if you like.
There’s a link to Matador at the bottom of the page.
That’s the publisher.
And a very nice job they’ve done of it too.

I’d like to say the same about Ian R Ward.
He’s the illustrator.
But sadly I can’t.
That’s because he’s done an absolutely brilliant job!
Stunning in fact.
He’s made the book what it is.
Fantastic.

But I would say that.
Wouldn’t I?
Now I’m an author.
Officially.
Today.

So – like it.
Share it.
Shout it from the rooftops.
Make it so viral the internet will need a tanker full of Lemsip to recover!
As long as it’s recovered for October.
In time for the second one.
IN THE DOGHOUSE!
The one after DOGNAPPED!
You will buy it?
Won’t you?
Good.
Misty will be well chuffed.
Won’t she?

http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3775

Caught short in the throne room!

I’m back again. Be fair, I did give you the weekend off! Anyway, here we go again rehashing old blogs for my new WordPress platform. This one was a bit of a rant about Game of Thrones from back in January this year, it went something like this:-

Hello everyone.

I hope that you all had the Christmas and New Year you were hoping for.

I know, sorry,
I’ve been a bit lax in the blogging department over the Christmas break.
What’s that?
You’ve missed me? Nice of you to say so.
I missed you too, thanks for the card by the way.

However there was a very good reason for my absence – Kate and I were watching Game of Thrones.
From the beginning.
All fifty episodes of it.
That’s five whole series.

Impressive huh?

Have you seen it? It’s part medieval saga, part gothic fantasy. There are zombies. There be dragons. There is violence and gore graphically displayed. In between fighting the men pop off down to the local whorehouse, provided of course that they’ve got enough working bits left intact. Must be something to do with relieving the tension! There are an awful lot of unclothed lady parts on view.
I closed my eyes – honest!

At a rare outing away from the carnage and debauchery I told my brother’s family what we were doing and as one they all started humming the theme tune! They’d seen it already, so we stuck our fingers in our ears and sang ‘lardy dardy da’ at the top of our voices so that they couldn’t spoil the ending.
As it turns out we wish we hadn’t bothered, because how do I feel now, apart from a thumping, over exposure to telly, headache?

Disappointed really.

‘Oh no,’ I hear you cry, ‘for heavens sake why?‘
It’s not sodding finished, that’s why!
Sky Atlantic didn’t point that little wrinkle out at the beginning, did they! Apparently there’s supposed to be another two series to come: except – the books haven’t actually been written yet. But did they tell us that as the opening titles came up?
No!
They left that to Melvin Bragg on the South Bank Show right after the last episode. Up he pops after the ‘de de diddle diddle de bop’ cello music looking like he’s dipped his head in a bucket of black emulsion – I mean honestly, he ought to be as grey as I am! Grow old gracefully, man!
‘Today on The South Bank Show,’ he nasally tells us – how on earth did he ever get a job as a t.v. presenter when he talks down his nostrils like that? – ‘I shall be interviewing Game of Thrones writer, George R R Martin.’
And he did.
And George R R tells us with a bit of an embarrassed giggle that he hasn’t finished penning book six yet.
He missed his deadline.
Again.
He’s ever so apologetic but he’s been ‘a bit busy.‘

What!!!?

‘So, where exactly that leaves us with what ought to be the final book, book seven, isn’t clear,’ Melvyn’s nose gleefully tells us, as his artificially darkened locks happily bounce up and down. Don’t try to kid us, Mel, we can tell when you’re laughing!

Are you kidding!!!?

It turns out that telly series six will be a bit of a guess. When the book finally comes out it may be a bit different, depending on what sort of mood old George is in at the time.
Well at least us poor short changed punters know what the R R stands for now, don’t we! Royally Rogered!

I write as one who under no circumstances whatsoever would watch the first Lord of the Rings film until I knew the other two were completed. Call me pedantic but I like to see the finished article, rather than some half arsed attempt!
I did accidentally see the first Star Wars film – someone had it on at their house whilst I was there – but I steadfastly refuse to watch the rest until all of the promised nine are in the can. I’ll probably die first, but hey ho, at least I won’t feel cheated.

So all I can do now is wait for the author to catch up and then sit through the whole lot again.

Pardon?
No, it’s all to do with continuity – nothing to do with lady parts at all.

As if!

 

Wanna be a widget?

An author friend of mine, Pam Lecky, asked a question today concerning how authors find readers, which has encouraged me to reissue this post which poses more or less the same question. Does it answer it? No, not really, but it’s worth a giggle!

Once upon a time – back in the days before the world wide whatnot – when I had a proper job, I was an engineer.

‘Oh really,‘ I hear you cry, ‘what did you engineer?‘
Well that’s not really going to be the point of today’s lesson, so let’s for the sake of simplicity just reply to that question – widgets.

Yes, widgets. Of all shapes and sizes. And as a widget engineer I was priviledged to receive, once a month, a copy of Widget Engineering News. In fact anybody who was anybody, and even me, in the field of widget engineering was on the mailing list of this erstwhile publication. Which was great. Because it told us all about engineering widgets. Except, we already knew about such things because we engineered widgets every sodding day! Believe me, when you’ve seen one widget you’ve seen them all. Let me tell you that widget engineering was not the glamourous occupation it was cracked up to be!

Meanwhile the people who really needed to know about widgets and where to put them – in the politest sense – were not within this elite circle and therefore remained blissfully ignorant of the benefits that a widget might bring to their product.

As a result the widget manufacturing industry in this country contracted, amalgamated and was eventually sold off lock, stock and barrels full of widgets to the Chinese who made them much cheaper; although of dubious quality.

Widget Engineering News could not handle a change of this magnitude – it did not have the financial clout to invest in a Mandarin font – and decommisioned its presses soon after.

And so to my point – you just knew that we’d get there eventually, didn’t you – I’m now trying to write. In fact I’ve written, so keep your eyes on this website there’ll be a kids book along shortly.

As a prelude to this event (I was going to say notable event, but you might not agree!) I’ve joined a couple of writers groups. We read bits of our work to each other and congratulate each other on our wit and originality.
I also signed up to ‘wanna be a writer’ on Facetubebook, as well as some similar sites. So I’m now posting my work to other writers!

Now I’m not doubting that writers do read, but, am I in danger of following the Widget Engineering News’s business model?
Or, is there somewhere that I can showcase my undoubted literary talent to people that actually read?

Just wondering!

Sorry? – Oh, the name of the kids book. It’s working title is:-

绑架!

Or however they pronounce it in Beijing!

Ashes to ashes, rock to funky…

Here we go again to celebrate my conversion to WordPress – what’s this, day four of re-blogging old blogs from the blogging platform that time forgot? Only six more days to go then – I set a limit of ten, you’ll be pleased to know!

This one is fairly recent, inspired by some innocuous comment in a newspaper back in March this year. Combine that with the sad demise of an international superstar and this is what you get – this is, Ashes to ashes, rock to funky…

In a blog back in May of last year, I reported live from Huston Space Centre that shortly we would all be off to Mars. If you remember I said that we would have to travel light, with no room for even a clean pair of pants. For my readers in the USA I guess that means undershorts or some such phrase – I thought you spoke English for heavens sake. No wonder Superman always wore his kit back to front! (Don’t want any bilingual mix ups here, remember when the French programmed that probe in kilometres rather than miles a few years back – yeah, the infamous SPLAT! shot, you got the one. As David Bowie may have commented, ‘I think my spaceship knows which way to go-oo.‘ But let’s face it if that lot the other side of the English Channel have anything to do with it, it won’t stop when it gets there! How embarrassing!

Oh, how we all laughed!
Parlez vous Francais? Oops, obviously not!
Cue mutterings of ‘merde,‘ and a lot of Gallic shrugging. (Incidentally and perhaps for discussion another time, if we get out of the EU do we get our measurements back?) And yes, thank you, I do know that there’s a funny squiggly thing under the ‘c’ in Francais, but I don’t know where it is on the keyboard, o.k! Besides, it’s only French, so who cares.
Anyway, I digress.
Who said, ‘as usual!‘ I can type and hear at the same time you know, it’s called multitasking!

But I fear that I may have inadvertently misled you good people and must apologise – and quickly, before you all rush to take your protein pills and put your helmets on. It appears that we are about to learn the answer to Mr. Bowie’s question very shortly – provided they haven’t invited the folks who sent them the Statue of Liberty to have another play on their computer.
What do you mean, ‘Which question?‘

‘THE‘ question.
Is there life on Mars? of course.
And it appears that the answer to the poser on America’s tortured brow could after years of speculation to the contrary actually be – yes!
Not little green men you understand. Or even laughing gnomes for that matter. No, neither of those would pose a problem, the human race has a unique solution to tackling the tricky question of integrating with alternative societies – it’s called genocide. Or as near as dammit anyway. There are still a few Red Indians and Aborigines about, but not nearly enough to worry about.

What they think they’ve found up there (Or is it down? Do we really know which way round we are in the Universal scheme of things?) sloshing about the old Red planet is – water.

And what do you get with water?
Yes, mud I grant you, but not really the answer I was looking for.
O.k. own up. Who said, ‘Ice cream franchises?‘
No, now you’re not paying attention are you!
One of the most important, fundamental and significant discoveries ever.
O.k. if you want to, take a few minutes to mull it over.

You’re no closer to an answer really are you. Shall I let the cat out of the bag?
Life!
O.k. Perhaps it was a silly question, but I don’t think that you were really trying.
‘Oh no love, you’re not alone!’ The artist formerly known as David Jones again. Makes you think he may have known something all along. Sadly it’s too late to ask him now.
But, like I said earlier, it’s life but not as we know it. Cue Star Trek theme music. Thank you,Bones.
So what is it they think that they may find?
Bacteria.
What!
Yes, you heard correctly. Bacteria. Apparently the little blighters are quite partial to the dark and moist – no madam, I think you might find that’s a fungal infection but I know where you’re coming from, if you’ll pardon the expression. Try some Canesten! If that doesn’t work get someone to look into it for you.

The rest of you – stop sniggering!

Now I’ve seen the Actimel advertisements and am quite aware that there is such a thing as good bacteria.
But, be honest, there’s also some slightly nastier stuff about.
Call me cautious in the extreme but do we really want to go messing around up (or down) there to find out if it’s good stuff or bad stuff lurking about on the planet we named after a chocolate bar?
Now we know why poor old David’s starman didn’t make it back. Major Tom was strung out on Lemsip. Not so Hunky Dory after all.
I’ve had man-flu on and off now since Christmas. Believe me we have enough bacteria of our own to go around thank you very much.
Just imagine – all that extra snot! At least that explains the little green man theory.

Bogie men, obviously!

And let’s face it the media couldn’t give a fig – if Dave’s correct, and he has been so far, all the papers really want to know is whose shirts you’re wearing whilst you’re floating about in the vacuum of space.

So dear reader – when we have so much to sort out on our own poor benighted planet, lawmen beating up the wrong guy for example – do you really think we ought to go messing about with bugs from other rocks?

Whatever happened to the Mayans..?

Hi there, me again.

In our little ramble through past blogs (on the platform with very little responses) to coincide with my Branding and Blogging course on WordPress, I came across this gem from last year. I thought that you might like it.

Kate and I had taken a cruise up the figityjords in Norway – to celebrate my still being here after a heart attack – and we unexpectedly came upon the answer to one of mankind most puzzling questions.

First published in August 2015 – Whatever did happen to the Mayans..?

It is a conundrum that has troubled me for years, but now, in Norway, I believe that I may at last be able to shed some light on one of mankind’s enduring mysteries – whatever became of the Mayan civilisation?

Yes, those funny little South American Indian chaps who all of a sudden upped sticks and buggered off to who knew where, leaving behind a few poxy pyramids and a pretty depressing prophecy of mankind’s imminent demise.

Bear with me and I’ll fill you in.

We docked in Stavanger (backwards! I guess the Captain was on the pop last night too and decided to do a handbrake turn.) A pretty place, quite a bustling little city really. I say city because it has its own cathedral, although not much bigger than most places parish church back home. Had a wander round, the dockside, the old town, the market…

‘No!’ I hear you cry, ‘Not the market! Isn’t Kate with you?’

Well yes she is and thank you for your concern, but thankfully the bank have blocked her card because she didn’t tell them that she was going away – shame!

Anyway, I digress. Who should be at the aforementioned market but a few South American Indians selling woollen goods from their stalls. You know the sort of thing, woolly pullies with nicely embroidered geometric patterns or knitted Canadian Moose on the front. O.k – they may be Elk, let’s not get too pedantic! You could also buy those caps with the flaps and the long dangly tassels that serve no discernible purpose whatsoever.

Which got me to thinking – you see I’ve also been to Madeira, another cruise ship resort. Who do you bump into at the top of the mountain selling the same sort of stuff ‘cos the chances are it may turn a bit chilly. And you’ve left your jumper at the beachfront hotel because you never had the foresight to think it might be a tad colder two thousand feet up. There’s no faulting these people for their marketing acumen. You got it – the Mayans! They’ll be down at the seafront too, roasting chestnuts and playing the bloody pan pipes, trying to flog you a C.D that you’ll never play again once you get home.

What enterprise! You can’t knock ’em for it, can you!

Hold on though! Yes I know what you’re going to say, ‘Where do they get the wool from?‘

I’m ahead of you there, I’ve seen a poster – you’ll never guess what they have here in Norway.

Llamas!

Yes really! Woolly things that spit at you. Can’t get a lot more South American than that, can you? No, I don’t know how you would go about shearing a Llama now you ask – they obviously manage it somehow – but very, very carefully I should think.

So there we have it – Mayans, Llamas and a misunderstanding. It appears that they never made a prediction for the end of Mankind, it was the date on their business plan when they thought that they might break even. Let’s face it you have to offset the value of sales against the cost of purchasing, feeding and stabling a herd (is it a herd or a ‘gob’) of Llama’s and take into account the wages of a tribe of knitting South American nana’s.

Well let’s face it – they were really shit at building pyramids.

Stick with me folks, you don’t get stuff like this on the Open University, do you?

From Billy Joel to Billy Whizz…

 

 

I promised you some re-hashed blogs earlier. Here’s todays contribution, first published on 3rd of December 2015. Hope you enjoy, there’ll be another one along tomorrow.

Did I ever mention that Kate had a horse?
No?
Well sorry for the omission, but let’s set the record straight here and now because there happens to be a bit of news of an equine nature.
Kate had a horse. Notice the ‘had’ – past tense.
Kate has actually had a few horses. She takes in youngsters who have had a rough start in life and brings them on.
Fair play to her for that.
Very admirable.
There’s been Roxy, Paddy, Bella and Ted. All now happily re-homed.
The latest grateful benificiary of Kate’s ministrations was Buddy. That’s him in the picture above.
Yes, the one on the left.
You what? No need, really!
Buddy horse has now gone the way of his predecessors and will be living with a nice young lady in Chesterfield. There she is putting Buddy into the transporter for his journey. All’s well that ends well.

Except…
You knew this was coming didn’t you?
I certainly did!
There is now a void in Kate’s life that nothing can fill unless it is vaguely horse shaped.
We discussed it.
‘Winter’s coming,’ I said. ‘Leave it a bit – get Christmas out of the way. And don’t forget that we’re going to have a really busy year next year.’
Well we are, one way and another.
Her daughter and her family are coming over from the U, S of A in March.
At the end of that same month her son gets married.
In April I’ve got a book coming out (did I mention that?) DOGNAPPED! order it on Amazon now https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dognapped-David-J-Robertson/dp/1785891448? Sorry, commercial break over.
Later in the year we have the small matter of our own wedding to arrange and conduct.
I think that you might agree that we’re going to have our work cut out.
Kate certainly agreed.
‘Yes, you’re right.’ she said.
Honestly.
She said that.

27 hours and 15 sodding minutes.

That’s exactly how long we were horseless.

Really!

I was so staggered by the whole saga that I’ve written a song about it! Remember ‘Piano Man,’ by Billy Joel – get that tune humming around your head. Got it?
With all it’s da de da’s?

Ha! See all the kids running to You Tube – WTF? We dough no ’bout ‘im! Zee a rappa ore wah?

Never mind, read on:-

GET ME A HORSE – WHAT’S THE MATTER MAN!?

It’s nine o’clock on a Sunday
And Buddy is going away
Kate turns to I
With a tear in her eye
I know what she’s going to say.

She says, Dave I think this is killing me
As the smile ran away from her face
I don’t care for the cost
‘Cos I really feel lost
Without a small horse in this place

Lie de die did e die
Lie lie did e die
Clippy clop

‘Get me a horse, what’s the matter man!?
Get me a horse today
I don’t care if it’s wrong
If it’s tall, short or long
If it’s equine it’s going to stay!’

Now here we are twenty hours later
Both sipping a drink in the pub
She’s well deep in thought
‘Cos her face has gone taut
And I think that she’s going to blub

And then she bangs on the table
So hard that I spit out my beer
She’s googled a nag
From the phone in her bag
And shouts ‘Come on, let’s get out of here!’

Lie de die did e die
Lie lie did e die
Clippy clop

We’ve hotfooted down to the stable
In less time than it takes to blink
She’s drawn out some loot
And the pony looks cute
Is she having it? – what do you think!

So the deal is all done and dusted
I really had nothing to say
She says, ‘How much was it?’
As she pays the deposit
‘Oh, and throw in a bundle of hay.’

‘Get me a horse, what’s the matter man!?
Get me a horse today
I don’t care if it’s wrong
If it’s tall, short or long
If it’s equine it’s going to stay!’

‘Are you crazy!?’ I hear you all asking
‘Are you really that easily swayed?’
But I’d took the wrong stance
Now I know there’s no chance
Of hoping that I might get laid.

Because the damn horse it needs feeding
And grooming, it’s starting to vex
I’ve been sold a pup
‘Cos there’s poo to pick up
And there’s never no time now for sex!

Lie de die did e die
Lie lie did e die
Clippy clop

‘Get me a horse, what’s the matter man!?
Get me a horse today
I don’t care if it’s wrong
If it’s tall, short or long
If it’s equine it’s going to stay!’

So here he is folks.
He’s about a year old and so unbearably cute!
May I introduce you ladies and gentlemen to – Billy Whizz!

Cat flap next?
Yeah, that’s what I thought – I’ve seen that advert too!

Blogging to myself!

Hi everyone.

I recently attended #BloggersBash in London.

Enjoyed it, even though I seemed to develop an instant shyness problem, don’t know what bought that on. Perhaps that’s why I write rather than mingle?

And when the guest speaker (incidentally, Luca was excellent) asked the question, ‘How many of you are on WordPress?’ the answer turned out to be everyone.

Except one.

Little old moi!

I wondered why I wasn’t getting much in the way of feedback. Turns out that I’d been blogging to myself!

I blame myself – my computer knowledge would fit on a very small postage stamp in very large letters. So if this all goes tits up I apologise in advance.

Because, in an effort to put that right here I am – on WordPress.

In fact I also signed up to their short course on Branding and Blogging, to get me started off on the right foot. First element – set 3 goals for my blog. So here goes :-

Step 1. Create a brand for my authorly (is that even a word!) bits. It is already out there on another platform which I’ll keep for now and see how it goes, but my mission statement is (how very corporate of me!) to get Misty Books to grow bigger and better. I won’t put any links on here – yet, I inadvertently broke someones rules the other day and got myself deleted. Oops! It’s that computer knowledge thing again.

 Here’s my logo – nice isn’t it? This is Misty. She’ll be very pleased to meet you all. Now, she really does like to meet new people – provided you tickle her behind the ear of course.

Step 2. Blog. Because I like it. I hope you will too. My blogs generally take the form of a bit of a rant – because I’m now of that age where much of life winds me up in a Victor Meldrew sort of way and it is best to let off steam now and again, don’t you find?

Step 3. Through my blogs, direct people to my books – after all why have a brand otherwise? There’s only one at the moment and it’s for kids. The next will be out just in time for Xmas – Yippee! But – and I stress – I’ll only harp on about book stuff when something good happens, so don’t panic. Most of the time we’ll be giving some arse a good kicking – and in a round about way it usually ends up being mine!

So, to repeat, here I am on WordPress.

At last!

I’m afraid that you’ll be getting a few weird things on here as I progress through the aforementioned Blogging and Branding course, so please excuse me. Lord knows what they’ll ask me to do next!

Please let me know if you spot me doing anything wrong. I do try to press the right buttons but you know how it is – and don’t even mention the bloody hashtag thing!

I’ll rehash some of my old blogs over the next few days just to give you a flavour. You never know – if you like them you might like to follow me.

Not that I’m desperate or anything, but you will – won’t you?